This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Such a frustrating disappointment

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Let's be realistic.

I generally enjoy slow moving noir films but Inherent Vice was incomprehensible to me. What was happening here? and if the idea was to cause confusion what is the point of it all. Maybe the point of the film was that sometimes we are part of such big confusing things that we cant possibly interpret it all. Never the less, no point in rating something i could not understand. Though PTA is one of my favourite directors this one is a miss for me. Only cool takeaway - "Inherent Vice" what a beautiful phrase. And maybe Inherent Vice's vice is inherent vice as it draws to a close.

Inherent ViceA concrete material throughout the course of the movie with more than enough content to feed the audience even for 148 minutes, is a script that does not come often onto Paul's table for it is completely a plot driven movie. Inherent Vice has a lot to offer, complex plots and sub-plots, amusing verbal sparring and eerie characters but it takes a lot of homework to bind them all and project it onto the screen which is accomplished in here for the most part of the movie. Paul Thomas Anderson's seventh installment is admirable and plausible in context of art but doesn't demand attention of the viewers which may come off as a bit downer considering there is a lot to intake. Joaquin Phoenix is the key that glues each and every character and sequences in this overlong drive and he pulls it off with the help of a great supporting cast like Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston and Owen Wilson. Inherent Vise is witty but low on drama, has reasonable content but lacks gripping screenplay and has stellar performances but contains lots of bumps down the road.

A private investigator with a love of vice is drawn into a dark and convoluted world of crime and corruption through his love of a woman who used to be his girlfriend. Some sort of modern noir, absolutely brand new in its candid depiction of everything the original noirs only hinted at, but also delighting in the ridiculous tropes of the genre. Leading us in directions we didn't expect and don't necessarily understand, the connections pile up like the ash of a joint and at the end we are left a little dazed and confused.

Less than 30 minutes into this self-absorbed slugfest of a movie I felt like I'd been pumped full of valium and zombified. Why make a movie this lacklustre? Perhaps I'm missing the point. Maybe Inherent Vice is actually some kind of subtlety-laced masterpiece of understated nuance and restraint, but to me it was unforgivably boring. I lasted until the scene at the massage parlour reception desk, which I can only describe as the most uncomfortably vacuous 3 minutes of cinema in living memory. How could anyone script that scene without immediately wanting to rip up and burn everything they've ever written? Terrible.As it happens, the recreation of 1970s post-hippie fallout America looked pretty spot on to me, but that counts for zero when you lend it to a movie that's about as entertaining as watching stick insects do tai chi. Awful.